there's always this year

Oh, Ichiro. I wish the front office cared as much about winning as you do.

Ah, baseball season. Double ah, Opening Day...plus the night before that featured the World Champion Cardinals start on a sour note. But that, really, was just an introduction to one of those few, glorious days where ESPN gives wall-to-wall coverage time to baseball (others include: memorial day, the 4th of July, labor day, and the final days into the stretch run).

for me - and many other people enjoying life in the beautifully rainy oasis that is the Northwest - ESPN's bevy of early day games from the East coast is a warm-up for switching over to FSN, hearing that usual intro music and waiting for Dave Niehaus to step up to the mic for the first time in the new season.

And, promptly, to be ready for another underwhelming season of Seattle Mariner baseball.

Aside from the Glorious Halcyon Days of 1995-2001, the Mariners have never really mattered. They were one of the worst franchises, had one of the worst owners, and played in the Kingdome - that should be self explanatory. Hell, much like the editor of With Leather, I could watch the clip of the Kingdome imploding all day long:



Ahem. I just watched that three and a half times. Good stuff.

I'm usually optimistic; I'm usually optimistic about my Mariners, too, but this season I just can't find any reason to be. We're in Year Three of the Reign of Hargrove, the man who fucked up with the mid-90s Cleveland Indians, one of the most stacked teams of all time, and we still have Bill Bavasi - aka Public Enemy Number One within Mariner fandom - as our General Manager. This man traded a great young middle reliever for a spent starter with injury problems this offseason. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

You can smell the pessimism from here. Winning the first two games barely enforces this - okay, King Felix played up to his potential, Sexson hit a couple bombs and Beltre is finally earning his pay...these are things that should be automatic. You pay a lot for a player, you expect him to pay to that level. am I wrong?

nope. just a pessimistic Mariner fan who has been unimpressed.

------

Blazers notes: Randolph out for the rest of the season with hand surgery; he's going to have to be careful when he makes it rain while on bereavement, I guess. This also is the equivalent of the Magic 8-Ball showing "Signs point to 'yes'" when you ask it "Will Z-bo be traded?": It's not a guarantee, but it's a nice sign. Thankfully LMA is a beast, though now out with something weird with his heart. He should talk to my mom about that, she just had a mild surgery last week.